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| “ | I am the Arch-fiend, the Despoiler of Worlds, and by my hands shall the False Emperor fall. | „ |
| ~ Abaddon introducing himself. |
Ezekyle Abaddon, better known as Abaddon the Despoiler, is the main antagonist of the grimdark science fantasy franchise Warhammer 40,000.
He is the Warmaster of Chaos, former First Captain and now Supreme Leader of the Black Legion and rumored to be the clone progeny of Warmaster Horus. He is currently the most powerful Warmaster of all, successor to Horus, and blessed by the Chaos Gods. His Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar counterpart is Archaon.
Biography[]
Pre-Heresy[]
Ezekyle Abaddon was the First Captain, leader of the First Company and official second-in-command of the Luna Wolves Legion, before it became the Black Legion. He looked upon Horus as a leader and a father, eventually revering him as a god and holding him above even the Emperor of Mankind.
Not only was he First Captain of his legion, whose exploits were known throughout the Imperium, he was also part of the choleric member of the Mournival, a group of four captains who acted as counselors to the Warmaster, and indeed had been in the group since its inception.
Extremely proud and quick to anger, Abaddon's martial record was unsurpassed by that of any other Luna Wolf. One of Abaddon's greatest glories was the final battle of the Ullanor Crusade, where only he and his Primarch Horus walked away from the speartip strike on the Ork Warlord's headquarters. He took his position extremely seriously, but did enjoy sharing his sense of humor with his Mournival brothers.
Imposing in almost every way, Abaddon possessed a particularly deep voice, was taller, stronger and bulkier than the average Space Marine, and wore his long black hair in a strikingly tall topknot when not using a helmet. He had similar facial features to those of Horus, particularly the widely spaced eyes and the long straight nose. He often wore a large black wolf-pelt over his power armor, to which he also attached a cloak upon occasion. Abaddon possessed both a suit of power armor and suit of Terminator Armour, the former being painted in the standard colors of his Legion, while the latter was primarily black in colour, which marked him out as a member of the 1st Company elite. Indeed, Abaddon's personal unit was the black-armored Justaerin Terminator Squad, but he normally left command of it to Captain Falkus Kibre. Little Horus Aximand quipped that this was because Abaddon was actually too big to fit inside a Terminator suit. Towards the end of the Great Crusade, Abaddon would only be seen in his black Terminator garb.
Abaddon had a strong dislike of Aliens that was notable even for a Space Marine; his antipathy for them was so strong that he actually argued against the Warmaster's intention to parley with the Interex, a human civilisation that allowed an alien species to coexist with them.
Abaddon eventually grew frustrated and angry at the Emperor's supposed "abandonment" of the Space Marine Legions, feelings which swelled to the surface when Horus was mortally wounded on the moon Davin and laid near to death. Another Space Marine, Erebus of the Word Bearers Legion, who had secretly orchestrated Horus' near-death, proposed taking Horus to the shamanic Serpent Lodge for healing. Desperate for an answer to that was not coming from their own medical facilities, Abaddon readily agreed to this plan. And so had the begun the road to damnation.
The Horus Heresy[]
Abaddon as he appeared during the Horus Heresy
After Horus' recovery, he renamed his Legion to the Sons of Horus, the Legion grew ruthless and hateful. Abaddon grew ever more protective of his Primarch and his Legion's reputation, to the point where he saw remembrancer criticism and Imperial investigation into Legion activities as threats and insults that could not be borne. He therefore sanctioned the murder of the poet Ignace Karkasy and the blaming of Legion-caused civilian casualties upon Garviel Loken. This course of action was frustrated by the refusal of Tarik Torgaddon to accede to the plan, and the Mournival brotherhood was effectively broken as a result.
Abaddon's thinking would prove to be in tune with that of his commander, who would eventually order not only the death of Karkasy but also that of Loken. Seemingly destined to be in lockstep with the Warmaster, when Horus came to the warrior lodge of his Legion to sway them into following him onto what would prove to be the path of heresy, Abaddon was amongst the first to swear his unquestioning loyalty.
Abaddon was present at several of the major actions of the Horus Heresy. During the purging of the loyalist Legionaries at Isstvan III, Abaddon notably took to the field with Horus Aximand to attend the final meeting of what had once been the Mournival, at which they dueled with Garviel Loken and Tarik Torgaddon, respectively. Though slightly wounded in the combat, and Aximand fundamentally changed, Abaddon and Aximand emerged the victors, with Loken and Torgaddon presumed dead.
7 years later, at the the Battle of Terra, the climax of the Horus Heresy, Horus and the Emperor had dueled on Horus' own flagship The Vengeful Spirit. Though the Emperor was mortally wounded, Horus was slain, definitively ending the Horus Heresy. The Sons of Horus recovered Horus' remains and retreated with the Traitor Legions to the region of space known as the Eye of Terror. Abaddon claimed Horus' lightning claw, the Talon of Horus, as his own along with the office of the Warmaster.
Post-Heresy[]
Abaddon eventually renamed the Sons of Horus as the Black Legion to expunge the name of Horus, who failed in his attempt to take over the Imperium. He eventually returned at the head of a diabolic horde which ravaged entire systems around the Eye of Terror before the Imperium could muster the strength to halt it. During this first "Black Crusade", Abaddon made many bloody pacts with the infernal powers. In the crypts below the Tower of Silence on Uralan, Abaddon recovered the Daemon Sword Drach'nyen. With the howling daemon blade in his fist Abaddon became nigh unstoppable. Whole cities were burned in sacrifice to the ever-hungry daemons of Chaos, and entire armies were torn apart by gibbering warp entities. Abaddon's power swelled to inhuman proportions as the gods of Chaos rewarded him lavishly and he undertook acts of fiendish bravery which horrified those who stood against him.
During the Gothic War, Abaddon almost brought an entire sector to its knees. His fleets were augmented with a newly constructed flagship, known for good reason as the Planet Killer. Alongside this he somehow activated and gained control of the Blackstone Fortresses, mysterious constructions allegedly predating the Imperium itself that combined to generate prodigious destructive firepower. Abaddon attacked while the sector was cut off from reinforcements by warp storms and caused huge damage to the Imperial battlefleet, destroyed a number of planets and devastated many more. Only the intervention of the Eldar enabled Imperial forces to stop the Chaos fleet.
In the most recent assault, Abaddon managed to gain a foothold in the Cadian Gate, planning to extend the Eye of Terror to encompass even Terra in a plan known as The Crimson Path. Abaddon's forces were able to gain a foothold on Cadia to the point where only a single Imperial bastion, Kasr Kraf, remained. After the vicious Battle of the Elysion Fields, Kasr Kraf fell and Abaddon moved onto the last stage of his plan: destroying the Cadian Pylons. In the final battle beneath Cadia's surface Abaddon personally clashed with a variety of foes including Saint Celestine, the Geminae Superia, inquisitor Greyfax, and Ursaker Creed for control of the Pylons. Abaddon bested them all and managed to defeat Celestine who had become depowered by the activation of Cadia's pylons. However despite the loss of an arm, Creed distracted Abaddon long enough for Celestine to impale him from behind with her giant flaming sword. Horribly wounded, Abaddon was forced to teleport back to his flagship the Vengeful Spirit.
But despite his wounds Abaddon was able to finish off Cadia by redirecting the debris of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity into its surface. The impact destabilized the Pylons, and Cadia was cracked in half and sucked into the Warp. Despite the final destruction of Cadia, Abaddon became enraged when he learned from Zaraphiston (his most senior advisor) that the Archmagos Belisarius Cawl had escaped with a relic of profound importance to Kalisus, the furthest planet in the Cadian system. Abaddon pursued Cawl and the remaining Imperial survivors to the world, but his prize was denied to him by the Eldar, who aided the Imperials and forced him to withdraw.
Vigilus[]
Abaddon later reemerged at the head of a massive Chaos armada to invade Vigilus. His objective was to destroy the planets Blackstone (which contains anti-warp properties) deposits and permanently seal the Nachmund gauntlet, the only reliable route left that leads to the northern part of the Imperium, called Nihilus. After acquiring the ancient gravity-altering weapon known as the Voidclaw to decimate much of Vigilus' surface, Abaddon's victory seemed certain. However, he was goaded by Imperial Commander Marneus Calgar into a duel. Though he bested Calgar in the battle and nearly slew him, the Ultramarines chapter master had used the distraction to cripple the Vengeful Spirit with an allied Eldar vessel loaded with Deathstrike missiles (plasma nukes). Faced with slaying Calgar or saving his prized flagship, Abaddon teleported away from Vigilus and left the warzone when the Vengeful Spirit made an emergency transition into the Warp. Even so Abaddon still hopes to seal off the Nachmund Gauntlet with the Planet Killer, a ship long thought destroyed.
Powers and Abilities[]
Abaddon the Despoiler is considered to be one of the strongest characters (With the exception of Gods) in the current timeline of 40k and for good reason. He is a near-unmatched warrior of immense superhuman strength and skill who is armed with a deadly arsenal of Chaos artifacts and daemonic weaponry as well as natural abilities that surpass any astartes/space marine. Any foe he faces in battle or in a duel short of a primarch or a very powerful and skilled psyker will always be overpowered and beaten with relative ease. He learned the arcane art of summoning daemons (Daemonancy) from the Word Bearer's Daemon Primarch Lorgar Aurelian. In times of need he can call upon the powers of chaos, but rarely if ever does so since he refuses to be fully corrupted by the Dark Gods and to this day maintains a fierce independence from them. He has been granted the "honor" of ascending to an immortal daemon prince many times, but each time he has strongly refused because he realizes that not only would he sell what's left of his humanity and forever be a slave to the Chaos Gods, but he would also require a near-constant supply of warp energy just to be able to stay in real-space for an extended period of time.
Wargear[]
- Talon of Horus: On his right hand Abaddon wears a large master-crafted lightning claw with an in-built Combi-Bolter, taken from his former primarch Horus. A rightly feared weapon, most notorious for slaying the beloved primarch Sanguinius right before Horus duelled the Emperor. A lightning claw is a powered gauntlet fitted with 3 to 4 razor-sharp adamantium blades (Abbadon's claw is unique for having 5) and each blade is also sheathed in a matter disrupting power field, enabling these weapons to carve through flesh, bone and armor with equal ease.
- Combi-bolter: A combi-bolter is a twin-barreled weapon that fires .75 calibre rocket-propelled rounds which are designed to explode after penetration, ensuring full lethality. It is capable of firing in both semi-automatic and fully automatic modes and can also fire in two or four rounds bursts. it can also be loaded with a wide variety of different munition types, from power armor destroying vengeance rounds to extremely expensive warp shells which can create miniature black holes.
- Drach'nyen: In his left hand Abaddon wields the legendary daemon sword Drach'nyen. It is host to a daemon of untold power birthed from the first murder of sentient human beings. A powerful blade with a sentience of it's own, the weapon can sunder the material universe with it's edge, cutting through matter like a mundane blade cuts through smoke. No protection, be it armor or forcefields can hope to survive even a single strike. It devours the souls of those it strucks and drinks the energy of the warp like water, consuming all in it's path utterly. The daemon can also alter the form of the blade revealing the skulls and faces of those it has devoured, which is sure to have a crushing effect on enemy morale. In the hands of Abaddon the daemon takes the form of a Greatsword since that is what he prefers, but it can also take on the form of virtually any other melee weapon. Drach'nyen has been witnessed to be powerful enough to completely destroy a land raider heavy transport tank and all it's occupants (not only killing them, but devouring their souls as well) with a single strike, a vehicle famed for it's exceptionally thick armor plating, only surpassed by heavy battle titans.
- Armor of Abaddon: Abaddon wears highly customized archaic Catapharactii pattern Terminator Armor. The armor is durable enough to withstand anti-tank missiles with ease and even high-powered energy weapons such as plasma rifles (which fires bolts of superheated energy as hot as a sun) and even a few lascannon shots (laser cannons which can reliably penetrate virtually any form of armor) without considering the multiple layers of daemonic protection Abaddon has been granted which allows him to literally shrug off firepower from super-heavy tanks. The suit is covered with numerous amounts of archaic devices, runes and fetishes that he has collected over the millennia since the Horus Heresy. It's still inscribed with a special daemonic rune gifted to him by the Daemon-Oracle of Asellus Tertius which greatly increases his protection from mortal weapons, be it melee or ranged. Finally it is also integrated with a personal teleporter device allowing him to teleport to and from a battlefield or ships in low-orbit.
- Mark of Chaos Ascendant: Abaddon bares the mark of Chaos Ascendant, which bestows him all the benefits of the four other marks of the major Chaos Gods, officially branding him as the greatest champion of Chaos Undivided. This also means he cannot be killed outright by anything in the physical world. Only a psyker of immense might and undoubted purity of both mind and heart is said to be able to destroy Abaddon for all time so that the Dark Gods are unable to resurrect him.
Personal Flagships[]
- Planet Killer: The dreaded planet killer is a large chaos starship of unique design which notably served as the flagship of Abaddon during the Gothic War and 13th Black Crusade. It owes its power and name to its main armament which makes up half the length of the ship, the Armageddon Gun, which is capable of destroying entire planets. The Armageddon Gun is a massive seven-barreled energy cannon of unmeasurable magnitude (likely warp-based in nature) which can destroy an entire planet by firing a concentrated beam that bores through a planet's crust causing a catastrophic eruption of planetary material. it's secondary armaments consists of long-range lances, weapons batteries and torpedo launchers. It is also exceptionally well armored and further protected by a plethora of void shield generators, the ship's only real weakness being its slow ponderous speed, making it easy to hit with coordinated torpedo strikes. The ship is approximately 8.4 miles or 13.5 kilometers long and is confirmed to have destroyed at least 3-4 planets as well as several moons.
- Vengeful Spirit: The main flagship of both Abaddon the Despoiler and the Black Legion. The Vengeful Spirit is a massive Gloriana class battleship (20km long ships, though their size and appearance varied greatly), one of the biggest of its class constructed. It possesses incredibly thick armor plating and is further protected by many overlapping void shields, granting it superb protection. It is also armed to the teeth, able to fend off an entire fleet on its own. The ship formerly served as the flagship of Horus and is infamous as the place where The Emperor decided to confront his traitorous son at the climax of the Horus Heresy which inevitably ended in a duel to the death.
- Harbinger of Doom: Formerly called the Magna Tyrannis during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy but later re-named the Harbinger of Doom. It is a Gloriana Class battleship that served as Abaddon's original flagship and considered the twin sister ship of the Vengeful Spirit. Currently It now serves as the secondary flagship of the Black Legion and still acts as Abaddon's flagship on occasion. However it is most often used as the main escort ship for the Planet Killer and is also known to be carrying five full companies of chaos space marines within it's hull.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Abaddon (also known as Abaddan, Apollyon, Appolyon and Appolion) literally meaning destruction, ruin or perdition, is the Hebrew name of the demon identified as the 'angel' of the bottomless pit, or the abyss in the Christian Bible's Book of Revelation of St. John; Revelation 9:11. Curiously, the Despolier himself is aware of this piece of trivia, and finds that sharing the name with the angel of destruction fits him.
- He is nicknamed Failbaddon the Armless or Armless the Harmless by fans due of having failed twelve crusades (though each of the crusades did fulfill a minor, but still significant goal) against the Imperium and because the arms of the character's miniatures have the tendency of falling off.
- After 13th black crusades, Abaddon finally achieved his goal of splitting the galaxy in half and destroying Cadia, though Terra and Mars was left unharmed.
- A new species of Arachnid found in Western Australia called Abaddon despoliator was named in honor of him by a taxonomist who happens to be a 40k fan. The decision to name it after Abaddon specifically is because it has spines on its body, much how Abaddon is covered in metal spikes.
